Following the National Party’s announcement that Christopher Luxon was to be their candidate for the Botany seat, there was the usual cluster of media activity including speculation about him being parachuted into the electorate (like John Key was a few years ago), with an eye to the leadership, but not a peep from him since.
Newshub ran a story on their website following an explosive (just kidding – but it was November 5th) interview with him. The headline read
Christopher Luxon not ruling out going for National leadership
Duncan Garner actually asked him
“What’s your ultimate goal…..I mean there’s all this talk about…. Oh he’ll become the leader of the National Party one day ….. um …. If I say … is it something you’ve thought about and you deny it … you’ve surely got to be … um … to be lying … so is this something that you um … covet … is it something that you … see yourself perhaps … being?”
To which Mr Luxon replied
“No look really uh … I mean really you are getting a bit ahead of yourself .. I really just wanna get in and actually be a great Botany MP .. win Botany for National and make sure Simon Bridges becomes the next Prime Minister in 2020 … we’re in a place at the moment where actually there’s a lot of drift going on across this country … we are talking in platitudes and buzzwords and ideology but we’re actually not getting things done”
The headline is typical media rubbish. Sure, it’s true, he didn’t rule out going for the National Leadership. He also didn’t rule out dancing naked in the streets (not that he was asked about this by the way), but it’s just mischief-making to headline it like that. As an aside – Luxon’s answer is platitudinous and buzzwordy and what exactly is “a whole lot of drift going on across this country”? He probably wasn’t being truthful either.
But where is Christopher Luxon? I spend a lot of time in the Botany electorate. I have many friends who live there or have businesses there. For the past several weeks, there have been several hoardings around the area promoting Jamie-Lee Ross but nobody has heard a peep out of Mr Luxon since the announcement over a month ago.
I’ve heard a whisper that following some pretty average media performances after the announcement, he’s been told to keep quiet and stay out of sight. I’ve also heard whispers that many locals don’t much like that he doesn’t live in the electorate and evidently has no intention of moving there.
Whatever the facts may be, he needs to make a start (if he has, some of us obviously haven’t noticed), or the flight will leave without him.